The AEO Playbook

Filled a worksheet already? See your plan so far →

Every play, numbered.

Around 35 plays are planned across the ten chapters; 19 are live today. Each is a self-contained action card: what to do, exact steps, what it costs in time, what done looks like, and a check you can repeat.

Play 02 Run the memory-or-search test on your own category Any Play 03 Pick your primary engine and set an engine budget Any Play 08 Classify your category as listicle-led or vendor-led Any Play 09 Build your gap list Any Play 16 Tear down the three pages that win your category Any Play 17 Build an honest comparison page B2B SaaS, Ecommerce Play 18 Add the evidence layer everywhere Any Play 19 Claim your entity on Wikidata, Crunchbase, and LinkedIn Any Play 20 Get your first 10 reviews on G2 and Capterra B2B SaaS, Agency Play 21 Submit to the directories that already cite your competitors Any Play 22 Build your listicle target list and pitch the authors Any Play 23 Show up on Reddit before you need it Any Play 24 Turn journalist requests into earned citations B2B SaaS, Ecommerce, Agency Play 25 Replicate your competitors' most winnable links B2B SaaS, Ecommerce Play 26 Run a listicle radar so you never miss a new list Any Play 32 Build your citation scoreboard Any Play 33 Segment AI referrals in your analytics Any Play 34 Set the routine: weekly check, monthly report, quarterly review Any Play 35 Report it honestly Any, Agency

A manual you run, not an essay you read.

The AEO Playbook is a free, open manual for getting your brand cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, and Google AI Overviews. Every chapter ends with a worksheet that produces something for your own brand (your money prompts, your gap list, your target list), and the Your plan page assembles your entries into one document you can copy or download.

The playbook's method in six steps, ending in an AI answer that names your brand: audit your visibility across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Google; classify your category as listicle-led or vendor-led; fix your pages; ship citable content; earn placements on G2, Reddit, Product Hunt, and Wikidata; and measure citation share weekly per engine, judging the trend rather than single runs.

Every tactic is backed by a number from our 1,237-citation study or a named external source, and the one number the whole book hangs on is this:

Bar chart. Share of all 1,237 citations, by source type: Independent listicles 40%, Vendors' own sites 34%, Media & SaaS blogs 15%, Reddit & forums 4%, Review sites (G2 etc.) 3%, YouTube 3%.

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<figure>
  <img src="https://visibly.so/figures/citation-2026-07-source-types-hub.png" alt="Bar chart. Share of all 1,237 citations, by source type: Independent listicles 40%, Vendors' own sites 34%, Media & SaaS blogs 15%, Reddit & forums 4%, Review sites (G2 etc.) 3%, YouTube 3%." width="780" height="259" style="max-width:100%;height:auto" />
  <figcaption>Where AI search citations actually go by <a href="https://visibly.so/playbook/">Visibly</a></figcaption>
</figure>

Independent lists beat the brands' own websites. That is why this playbook spends so much of its effort on the places other people write about you, and it is first-party data you can check, copy, and cite from the statistics page.

Two honest limits.

The AEO playbook, answered.

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